8 ms·

If we're going to sink our time into the old copyleft vs permissive licenses debate, I wish we would be more precise with our words. AGPL is an open source lic

by Flimm 10y ago

If we're going to sink our time into the old copyleft vs permissive licenses debate, I wish we would be more precise with our words. AGPL is an open source license, according to OSI, the only authority on what constitutes open source. https://opensource.org/licenses/AGPL-3.0 https://opensource.org/licenses/AGPL-3.0 You say "open for everybody to use". Both open source licenses and free/libre licences guarantee that the software is open for use. You're actually talking about freedom to combine with closed source/proprietary software, not about end-users freedom to use the software.

throwaway91111 10y ago
If nobody uses a piece of software, its freedom is debatable. I don't know of anyone using agpl'd code to build software people use.
- SamReidHughes 10y ago
  You never heard of anybody using MongoDB?
  - dsp1234 10y ago
    Note that the official MongoDB C driver is Apache licensed, which is what most developers would make a derivative work from. https://github.com/mongodb/mongo-c-driver/blob/master/COPYING https://github.com/mongodb/mongo-c-driver/blob/master/COPYIN...
    - SamReidHughes 10y ago
      RethinkDB's drivers are Apache licensed.
      - the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
        FWIW that was part of the problem since that's a walking license violation go the AGPL by many interpretations. It's just that Mingo/Rethink violate their own license there. However any other client? Unclear.
        manarth 10y ago
        [they] violate their own license Careful with the word "violate": as a copyright holder, you cannot violate your own license. The copyright holder has intrinsic rights; licenses are permission to extend a subset of rights to third parties.
  - darfs 10y ago
    I don't think that's even possible today, if you arent born on the Mars :-)
  - the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
    That's fine because Mongo is a company that plans on making money and holds the copyright. If it turns out AGPL is an issue they can relicense. The worry with RethinkDB was (at least mine and people I talked to) that it can become a liability if the AGPL turns out to be an issue since some third party owns the original copyright and then who knows what happens with future contributions.
  - ralfn 10y ago
    Yeah, that would be a great example of AGPL used to FORCE many parties to PAY for a non-AGPL license. For example, imagine Digital Ocean using MongoDB to store server configurations. AGPL would force them to open-source their whole infrastructure. All of it. Or pay to get a different license. I don't have a moral argument to make here -- just making sure people realize the actual trade-offs. AGPL is theoretically for a world where closed source software is simply not allowed to co-exist with opensource, even if you don't distribute it, but simply run it / host it / use it. But that world doesn't exist, so it does the opposite: it is actually used to make sure some of your users have to pay. It enables a business model.
    - SamReidHughes 10y ago
      > AGPL would force them to open-source their whole infrastructure. All of it. Citation needed.
    - jdelaney 10y ago
      > For example, imagine Digital Ocean using MongoDB to store server configurations. AGPL would force them to open-source their whole infrastructure. All of it. Or pay to get a different license. I don't think that's correct. From MongoDB the company[0]: > Note however that it is NOT required that applications using mongo be published. The copyleft applies only to the mongod and mongos database programs. This is why Mongo DB drivers are all licensed under an Apache license. You application, even though it talks to the database, is a separate program and “work”. [0] https://www.mongodb.com/blog/post/the-agpl https://www.mongodb.com/blog/post/the-agpl
  - snuxoll 10y ago
    @ralfn > For example, imagine Digital Ocean using MongoDB to store server configurations. AGPL would force them to open-source their whole infrastructure. All of it. Or pay to get a different license. AGPL licenses aren't transitive, things that touch AGPL'ed software over the network aren't suddenly required to be AGPL licensed (otherwise the whole purpose of it would fall apart, since a large chunk of the initial design was for Free Software web-applications which could still be run in proprietary web browsers). AGPL means if you decide to fork a project and add new features, then sell it as a hosted service ala AWS/Azure then you also have to provide anyone that connects to it your modified source code. I'm actually debating using the license right now in a couple of projects I've been prototyping - I don't want to prevent people from being able to make money offering hosted services, but at the same time I don't want hostile SaaS forks that could rip off my work without contributing their changes back (I like the BSD license for libraries, but I'm starting to appreciate the GPL/AGPL more for applications for community-related reasons rather than free software righteousness).
    - the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
      > AGPL licenses aren't transitive, things that touch AGPL'ed software over the network aren't suddenly required to be AGPL licensed (otherwise the whole purpose of it would fall apart, since a large chunk of the initial design was for Free Software web-applications which could still be run in proprietary web browsers). That is not necessarily true in the case of the database due to how the drivers work. This would need to be tested in court. It's unclear by the license terms alone.
      - Drdrdrq 10y ago
        Note that MongoDB clarified their understanding of AGPL in no uncertain terms [0] so they would have trouble dragging someone who developed apps using their DB to court and demanding opensourcing of the app. Without such clarification from their side we would never have touched MongoDB. [0] https://www.mongodb.com/blog/post/the-agpl https://www.mongodb.com/blog/post/the-agpl
        10y ago
- EGreg 10y ago
  We rationally and happily chose AGPL for our platform. I advise everyone to do the same in my longer comment on this page. You can ask me why by replying to it.
- icebraining 10y ago
  Very large companies and governmental entities are using AGPL-licensed copies of OpenERP (now Odoo). In my experience, working for a company that provided services based on it, the license was never a problem.
j-pb 10y ago
What if the end user is a developer?
- EGreg 10y ago
  See my comment below about that. The developer who wants to combine with closed source can contact us and work out a special deal. It's only fair. They want to be compensated for spending their time, then so do we.
  - greyman 10y ago
    Yes, but then don't talk about "freedom to use"... if something else must be done before that usage.
    - EGreg 10y ago
      It isn't freedom to use unconditionally. It's freedom to use if you do same as we did for you.
Doctor_Fegg 10y ago
You're not contradicting the_mitsuhiko. They said "it's definitely not the definition of open source". You answered "AGPL is an open source license, according to OSI". That is true, but "frog" is still definitely not the definition of "animal", even though a frog is an animal.
- vog 10y ago
  I don't think your interpretation of the_mitsuhiko's words does reflect what was meant. Because if it was, the comment of the_mitsuhiko as a whole wouldn't make sense. This is an interesting example for the difference between "reading by the word" and "reading by the meaning" (there's not a good English word for this, but in Germany we call this "sinnentnehmendes Lesen".)
  - pbtflakes 10y ago
    I believe the English-language term is "letter of the law" for literal interpretations and "spirit of the law" for interpretations based on what something is meant to do.
  - twic 10y ago
    I read the_mitsuhiko's comment with the same interpretation as Doctor_Fegg, and, as a native English speaker, i believe that this is the natural interpretation. I also believe it makes sense. Perhaps i can restate it. the_mitsuhiko made five assertions: 1. The AGPL is not just an updated GPL, but expands the scope of the GPL's 'infective' property considerably. 2. Some people are uncertain about what exactly the consequences of using AGPL'd software are. 3. Because of this uncertainty, there are companies which will not use AGPL'd software. 4. The AGPL is an open source license, but it is neither the only nor the most representative open source license. 5. Some people wish to license their software in a way which maximises the number of people who can use it. That means not using the AGPL, because of point 3.
- networked 10y ago
  A useful term to describe what it seems to me that the_mitsuhiko means is "noncentral example". The red-eyed tree frog [1] is an animal, but it is a noncentral example of an animal, i.e., it is not the typical thing you think of when you think "animal". To the_mitsuhiko, the AGPL is a noncentral example of an open source license. The term comes from the noncentral fallacy [2], which is about abusing noncentral examples. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agalychnis_callidryas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agalychnis_callidryas [2] http://lesswrong.com/lw/e95/the_noncentral_fallacy_the_worst_argument_in_the/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/e95/the_noncentral_fallacy_the_worst...
justin66 10y ago
> You're actually talking about freedom to combine with closed source/proprietary software, Or freedom to combine with software using any other non-copyleft, open source license.
- webmaven 10y ago
  As far as I know, AGPL is compatible with both Apache 2.0 as well as MIT/BSD permissive licenses. Which non-copyleft OSI-approved license are you having difficulty combing with AGPL?
  - cstejerean 10y ago
    When is the last time you looked at the OSI approved license list? Of the most common licenses the EPL and CDDL licenses are incompatible with GPL (I suspect it's similar for the AGPL since it's a modified GPL license). When you look through the full list you will see a lot more. Basically read https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#GPLIncompa... and see all the free software licenses that are incompatible with the GPL. Most of those are OSI approved.
    - webmaven 10y ago
      > [...] of the most common licenses Well, sure, but 10th- and 16th-most common (1% and <1%, respectively) isn't actually very common at all[0]. Which applies to the AGPL as well. The potential for conflict between EPL and AGPL, or CDDL and AGPL, code in projects is tiny. For that matter, the GPL was around first, and is the 2nd most popular license. Shouldn't the EPL and CDDL have been modified to be GPL compatible (the Apache Software Foundation managed to work this out with the FSF, over the Apache v2.0 and GPL v3.0 licenses, after all[1]). [0] https://www.blackducksoftware.com/top-open-source-licenses https://www.blackducksoftware.com/top-open-source-licenses [1] http://www.informationweek.com/enterprise/apache-foundation-co-founder-likes-gplv3/d/d-id/1056805 http://www.informationweek.com/enterprise/apache-foundation-...
greyman 10y ago
"Both open source licenses and free/libre licences guarantee that the software is open for use. You're actually talking about freedom to combine with closed source/proprietary software" But that "to combine" is exactly "to use", especially if it is a software library.

by Flimm 10y ago

throwaway91111 10y ago

If nobody uses a piece of software, its freedom is debatable. I don't know of anyone using agpl'd code to build software people use.

SamReidHughes 10y ago
You never heard of anybody using MongoDB?
- dsp1234 10y ago
  Note that the official MongoDB C driver is Apache licensed, which is what most developers would make a derivative work from. https://github.com/mongodb/mongo-c-driver/blob/master/COPYING https://github.com/mongodb/mongo-c-driver/blob/master/COPYIN...
  - SamReidHughes 10y ago
    RethinkDB's drivers are Apache licensed.
    - the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
      FWIW that was part of the problem since that's a walking license violation go the AGPL by many interpretations. It's just that Mingo/Rethink violate their own license there. However any other client? Unclear.
      - manarth 10y ago
        [they] violate their own license Careful with the word "violate": as a copyright holder, you cannot violate your own license. The copyright holder has intrinsic rights; licenses are permission to extend a subset of rights to third parties.
- darfs 10y ago
  I don't think that's even possible today, if you arent born on the Mars :-)
- the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
  That's fine because Mongo is a company that plans on making money and holds the copyright. If it turns out AGPL is an issue they can relicense. The worry with RethinkDB was (at least mine and people I talked to) that it can become a liability if the AGPL turns out to be an issue since some third party owns the original copyright and then who knows what happens with future contributions.
- ralfn 10y ago
  Yeah, that would be a great example of AGPL used to FORCE many parties to PAY for a non-AGPL license. For example, imagine Digital Ocean using MongoDB to store server configurations. AGPL would force them to open-source their whole infrastructure. All of it. Or pay to get a different license. I don't have a moral argument to make here -- just making sure people realize the actual trade-offs. AGPL is theoretically for a world where closed source software is simply not allowed to co-exist with opensource, even if you don't distribute it, but simply run it / host it / use it. But that world doesn't exist, so it does the opposite: it is actually used to make sure some of your users have to pay. It enables a business model.
  - SamReidHughes 10y ago
    > AGPL would force them to open-source their whole infrastructure. All of it. Citation needed.
  - jdelaney 10y ago
    > For example, imagine Digital Ocean using MongoDB to store server configurations. AGPL would force them to open-source their whole infrastructure. All of it. Or pay to get a different license. I don't think that's correct. From MongoDB the company[0]: > Note however that it is NOT required that applications using mongo be published. The copyleft applies only to the mongod and mongos database programs. This is why Mongo DB drivers are all licensed under an Apache license. You application, even though it talks to the database, is a separate program and “work”. [0] https://www.mongodb.com/blog/post/the-agpl https://www.mongodb.com/blog/post/the-agpl
- snuxoll 10y ago
  @ralfn > For example, imagine Digital Ocean using MongoDB to store server configurations. AGPL would force them to open-source their whole infrastructure. All of it. Or pay to get a different license. AGPL licenses aren't transitive, things that touch AGPL'ed software over the network aren't suddenly required to be AGPL licensed (otherwise the whole purpose of it would fall apart, since a large chunk of the initial design was for Free Software web-applications which could still be run in proprietary web browsers). AGPL means if you decide to fork a project and add new features, then sell it as a hosted service ala AWS/Azure then you also have to provide anyone that connects to it your modified source code. I'm actually debating using the license right now in a couple of projects I've been prototyping - I don't want to prevent people from being able to make money offering hosted services, but at the same time I don't want hostile SaaS forks that could rip off my work without contributing their changes back (I like the BSD license for libraries, but I'm starting to appreciate the GPL/AGPL more for applications for community-related reasons rather than free software righteousness).
  - the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
    > AGPL licenses aren't transitive, things that touch AGPL'ed software over the network aren't suddenly required to be AGPL licensed (otherwise the whole purpose of it would fall apart, since a large chunk of the initial design was for Free Software web-applications which could still be run in proprietary web browsers). That is not necessarily true in the case of the database due to how the drivers work. This would need to be tested in court. It's unclear by the license terms alone.
    - Drdrdrq 10y ago
      Note that MongoDB clarified their understanding of AGPL in no uncertain terms [0] so they would have trouble dragging someone who developed apps using their DB to court and demanding opensourcing of the app. Without such clarification from their side we would never have touched MongoDB. [0] https://www.mongodb.com/blog/post/the-agpl https://www.mongodb.com/blog/post/the-agpl
      - 10y ago
EGreg 10y ago
We rationally and happily chose AGPL for our platform. I advise everyone to do the same in my longer comment on this page. You can ask me why by replying to it.
icebraining 10y ago
Very large companies and governmental entities are using AGPL-licensed copies of OpenERP (now Odoo). In my experience, working for a company that provided services based on it, the license was never a problem.

j-pb 10y ago

What if the end user is a developer?

EGreg 10y ago
See my comment below about that. The developer who wants to combine with closed source can contact us and work out a special deal. It's only fair. They want to be compensated for spending their time, then so do we.
- greyman 10y ago
  Yes, but then don't talk about "freedom to use"... if something else must be done before that usage.
  - EGreg 10y ago
    It isn't freedom to use unconditionally. It's freedom to use if you do same as we did for you.

Doctor_Fegg 10y ago

You're not contradicting the_mitsuhiko. They said "it's definitely not the definition of open source". You answered "AGPL is an open source license, according to OSI". That is true, but "frog" is still definitely not the definition of "animal", even though a frog is an animal.

vog 10y ago
I don't think your interpretation of the_mitsuhiko's words does reflect what was meant. Because if it was, the comment of the_mitsuhiko as a whole wouldn't make sense. This is an interesting example for the difference between "reading by the word" and "reading by the meaning" (there's not a good English word for this, but in Germany we call this "sinnentnehmendes Lesen".)
- pbtflakes 10y ago
  I believe the English-language term is "letter of the law" for literal interpretations and "spirit of the law" for interpretations based on what something is meant to do.
- twic 10y ago
  I read the_mitsuhiko's comment with the same interpretation as Doctor_Fegg, and, as a native English speaker, i believe that this is the natural interpretation. I also believe it makes sense. Perhaps i can restate it. the_mitsuhiko made five assertions: 1. The AGPL is not just an updated GPL, but expands the scope of the GPL's 'infective' property considerably. 2. Some people are uncertain about what exactly the consequences of using AGPL'd software are. 3. Because of this uncertainty, there are companies which will not use AGPL'd software. 4. The AGPL is an open source license, but it is neither the only nor the most representative open source license. 5. Some people wish to license their software in a way which maximises the number of people who can use it. That means not using the AGPL, because of point 3.
networked 10y ago
A useful term to describe what it seems to me that the_mitsuhiko means is "noncentral example". The red-eyed tree frog [1] is an animal, but it is a noncentral example of an animal, i.e., it is not the typical thing you think of when you think "animal". To the_mitsuhiko, the AGPL is a noncentral example of an open source license. The term comes from the noncentral fallacy [2], which is about abusing noncentral examples. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agalychnis_callidryas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agalychnis_callidryas [2] http://lesswrong.com/lw/e95/the_noncentral_fallacy_the_worst_argument_in_the/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/e95/the_noncentral_fallacy_the_worst...

justin66 10y ago

> You're actually talking about freedom to combine with closed source/proprietary software, Or freedom to combine with software using any other non-copyleft, open source license.

webmaven 10y ago
As far as I know, AGPL is compatible with both Apache 2.0 as well as MIT/BSD permissive licenses. Which non-copyleft OSI-approved license are you having difficulty combing with AGPL?
- cstejerean 10y ago
  When is the last time you looked at the OSI approved license list? Of the most common licenses the EPL and CDDL licenses are incompatible with GPL (I suspect it's similar for the AGPL since it's a modified GPL license). When you look through the full list you will see a lot more. Basically read https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#GPLIncompa... and see all the free software licenses that are incompatible with the GPL. Most of those are OSI approved.
  - webmaven 10y ago
    > [...] of the most common licenses Well, sure, but 10th- and 16th-most common (1% and <1%, respectively) isn't actually very common at all[0]. Which applies to the AGPL as well. The potential for conflict between EPL and AGPL, or CDDL and AGPL, code in projects is tiny. For that matter, the GPL was around first, and is the 2nd most popular license. Shouldn't the EPL and CDDL have been modified to be GPL compatible (the Apache Software Foundation managed to work this out with the FSF, over the Apache v2.0 and GPL v3.0 licenses, after all[1]). [0] https://www.blackducksoftware.com/top-open-source-licenses https://www.blackducksoftware.com/top-open-source-licenses [1] http://www.informationweek.com/enterprise/apache-foundation-co-founder-likes-gplv3/d/d-id/1056805 http://www.informationweek.com/enterprise/apache-foundation-...

greyman 10y ago

"Both open source licenses and free/libre licences guarantee that the software is open for use. You're actually talking about freedom to combine with closed source/proprietary software" But that "to combine" is exactly "to use", especially if it is a software library.